Sugar Addiction in Rats: Links to Drugs of Abuse

描述(由申请人提供)： 这项研究计划的目的和目的是调查糖和药物成瘾的神经和行为相关性。最近，我国对饮食失调和肥胖的认识不断提高，这让许多人猜测食物的成瘾特性，以及这种成瘾可能与我们社会目前面临的暴饮暴食流行病有什么关系。最近对啮齿动物的研究表明，暴饮暴食会导致依赖，这与药物依赖在行为和神经化学上有一些相似之处(Colantuoni等人，2001年；Colantuoni等人，2002年)。这项提案计划通过对糖的渴求、敏化和与其他已知的滥用药物的交叉敏化进行行为调查来详细说明这些发现。此外，这项研究还将研究伏隔核中糖和药物成瘾之间的神经化学相似性。通过进一步阐明食物和药物之间的可能联系，可能会开发出新的药物和行为疗法来治疗饮食失调。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The objectives and aims of this research proposal are to investigate the neural and behavioral correlates of sugar and drug addictions. The recent increased awareness of eating disorders and obesity in our country has led many to speculate about the addictive properties of food, and how this addiction may be related to the over-eating epidemic our society is currently facing. Recent research in rodents has indicated that sugar bingeing can lead to dependency that shares some behavioral and neurochemical similarities with drug dependency (Colantuoni et al., 2001; Colantuoni et al., 2002). This proposal plans to elaborate on these findings, by behaviorally investigating sugar craving, sensitization and cross-sensitization with other known drugs of abuse. Moreover, this research will examine neurochemical similarities between sugar and drug addiction in the nucleus accumbens. By further elucidating a possible link between food and drugs, new pharmacological and behavioral treatments may be developed to treat eating disorders.